My life, I realize suddenly, is July. Childhood is June, and old age is August, but here it is, July, and my life, this year, is July inside of July.

Fiction is harder for me than nonfiction - more gratifying, as a result, when it succeeds.

I don't think I'm a natural novelist. Plot is definitely one of my weaker points. I've been working on it a long time, and it's not getting much better.

There are none among us who have not been, even for a moment, cruel to those whom we love most, as if unable, in that moment, to shoulder any longer the magnificent weight and burden, the responsibility, of that love.

The future's so random, and so mobile, there's no way you're going to get to your vision of what you want your community to be just by chance alone. I really believe you have to let people know, to use your voice, to say, 'this is what I like about my place, I want to keep it this way, this is what I think can be improved, this is what I disapprove of.' That's the only way you can have a part in shaping the future.

The natural world is the only one we have. To try to not see the natural world - to put on blinders and avoid seeing it - would for me seem like a form of madness. I'm also interested in the way landscape shapes individuals and populations, and from that, cultures.

I think a novelist must be more tender with living or 'real' people. The moral imperative of having been entrusted with their story looms before you every day, in every sentence.